The field of
industrial relations (also called labour relations or employment relations) looks at
the relationship between the government, management and workers. Traditionally Industrial Relations focused on the roles of the state, employees, employers and their management, and the role organized labour assumes in particular when represented by a trade union, as trade unions could call for industrial action to be taken in an organized fashion that could affect business, industry and commerce.

Industrial relations in the contemporary context, also provides for the aspects of labour relations that encompass individual contractors, individual employment contracts, self-employment, special workplace arrangements, volunteer work, lack of work and investment, lack of payment for work performed, payment provided for funding work that is not performed, the nature of investment, funding, work performed and payment arrangements, and other dimensions of work without organized labour.

Industrial Psychology
is concerned with the application of psychological theories, research
methods, and intervention strategies to workplace issues and with respect to the individual needs of individuals, groups, and organizations.

Industrial Relations Services

Management Consulting on Industrial Relations

Advice on Industrial Relations Law

Policies and Procedures for the Management of Industrial Relations, Employee Relations, Contractor Relations.

"Industrial Relations is the general state of relationships between the state, capital owners, society, labour, management, as applied to the problems of work, in business, commerce and industry."

The field of industrial relations also has traditional background at focusing on the relationship between management and workers, and in particular the relationship between business management and groups of workers represented by a union.

Labor relations can take place on many levels, such as the business and industry level, the municipal level, the regional level, the national level, the federal level, the transnational level, international level and global level. The distribution of power amongst these levels can greatly shape the way an economy functions.

Another key question when considering systems of labor relations is their ability to adapt to change. This change can be technological, economic, social or political.

Governments set the framework for labor relations through legislation and regulation.

Industrial Relations

The New Zealand Industrial Relations Framework

The Employment Relationship

Employee Relations

Employer Strategies

Worker Strategies

Trade Unions

Employer Organizations

The Role of the State in Industrial Relations

Contract Negotiation

Employment Contracts

Contractors and Sub-Contractors Contracts

Management of Industrial Relations Process

Disputes Resolution

Management of Disruptions and Strikes

Industrial Relations Law (New Zealand)

Industrial Relations Strategy

Industrial Relations Outcome Assessments

"Industrial Relations is the general state of relationships between the state, capital owners, society, labour, management, as applied to the problems of work in business, commerce and industry."

Industrial Relations, among it's many other functions, is concerned with the process of determining rates of pay for work and the conditions of employment by providing a floor of rights for individual contractors and individual employees, and by providing collective rights for contractors and employees. In addition industrial relations provides a ceiling on the rights of managers, employers and capital owners.

Industrial relations is using the legislative program of the state to regulate the formation of individual contractors contracts, individual employment contracts, employment contracts achieved through collective bargaining, the rights of employers, the role of trade unions, and the institutions and procedures and policies required by which this is done.

Within organizations industrial relations is often one of the duties of human resources management, although industrial relations negotiations and consultations are usually conducted by outside hired industrial relations experts, management consultants, and lawyers.

Unitary
perspective

In Unitarianism, the organization is viewed as a team defined by a common purpose through a single source of authority which rules and presides over the organization without redress or rivalry within the organization.

Consequently trade unions, employee rights advocates, contract lawyers, the media, labour laws and labour regulations are considered mutually exclusive to the organizations interests, as the principal owner of the organization prefers to be the sole authority of the organization without challenge.

In pluralism the organization is perceived
as being made up of powerful and divergent sub-groups, each
with its own legitimate needs, rights, obligations, loyalties and with their own set of
objectives and leadership demands.

In particular, the predominant
sub-groups of in the pluralistic perspective are the managers of the organization
and trade unions, and the managers of the organization and lawyers that work for employees and lawyers that work for contractors, and the state and its legislative program and the agents of the state that monitor and enforce the laws and regulations of the state.

This perspective
sees inequalities of power and economic wealth as having their
roots in the nature of the capitalist economic system, where there is a fundamental
division of interest between capital and labour.

Conflict
is therefore seen as inevitable and trade unions and other forms of providing for organized labour that defends and advances the interests of labour are a natural
response of workers to prevent the exploitation of their labour for the benefit of the exclusive interests of the owners of capital.

Marxism asserts that capital should be used to serve the best interests of society, in particular the people and population of society, and that labour and capital owners need to be managed and controlled in order to achieve these social objectives.